Cinders to Satin. Fern Michaels
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was surprised to find herself grateful. Perhaps she had been too hard on him. Glancing up, looking into his smiling face, she knew she had found a friend, and she returned his smile.
Byrch felt as though the sun had warmed his bones. She was lovely, this woman-child, and he suspected that there was a gaiety about her just beneath the surface of her powerful determination to surmount the hardships life had tossed her way. He liked the way her clear blue eyes met his steadily, and how her slim, delicately shaped nose turned up at the very tip, lending a saucy air to the structure and planes of her face. It was still a child’s face, rounded near the chin and pink at the cheeks from the March winds, but some day, Byrch knew instinctively, Callie James would be a beautiful woman if disease and privation didn’t alter the course of her future.
Georgie, Hallie, and Bridget waited near the edge of the park, anxious for Callie’s return. They were surprised to see the tall man carrying Billy on his shoulders and watched with a combination of shyness and curiosity.
Seeing his siblings, Billy began shouting, “I found it! I found it! Look!” He held out the gold coin Byrch had given him.
Georgie looked with amazement from his baby brother to Callie and then back at the coin. “You . . . you found the pot o’ gold?”
“No, him gave it to me,” Billy explained seriously. “Next time I find the pot!”
Byrch hoisted Billy back to the ground where the others could get a closer look at the coin. “I almost found it,” Billy said.
Callie rolled her eyes. Now she would never convince the children that the wee people were only make-believe. “You’ve made a hard job harder, Mr. Kenyon. There’s no room in our lives for believing in leprechauns and the like. Nothing save good luck and hard work will save us.” But the child in Callie rose victorious. “Still, I suppose there’s no real harm in believing, is there? I grew up on Granda’s tales, and they never hurt me, did they? I know what needs doing when it needs to be done.” She sighed resignedly. “And they are only children, aren’t they?”
“Sometimes, Callie, we all pretend to believe in something that we know couldn’t possibly be true. It’s the child within us. And there’s no harm in it, I assure you. I’d like you to tell me about your Granda. He seems a lot like my own.”
The children ran off to play, and Callie sank down onto the bench beside Byrch. She found the words tumbling out of her, telling him about Granda and Thomas and Peggy. It was good to talk, and she found herself reminiscing about happier times as she painted the canvas of her life with bold strokes of color and held it up for him to see. She’d never talked this way to anyone before, and because he seemed genuinely interested, she found herself imparting deep-seated feelings and secret thoughts she never considered sharing with another living soul. She told him of her ambivalent feelings toward her father, the love she felt for Peggy as well as her almost overwhelming need to protect her, and the frustrations of living with Granda’s tales and his encroaching senility. Talking to Byrch clarified many things she had never had either the time or inclination to discover about herself.
Byrch sat listening, enthralled. Her speech was peppered with local colloquialisms, adding richness to her descriptions. He wished he had a notepad and pencil to take it all down. He wanted to remember every word. Callie James saw the world with a child’s clear vision. Petty jealousies and self-centeredness were not a part of her world. She was as guileless as Billy and Bridget, even though the world and the times were bent on teaching her bitter lessons.
He realized with a start that Callie was staring at him, her words halted in mid-sentence. “What are you looking at, Callie? Have I a wart on the end of my nose?”
Callie blushed, her cheeks suffusing with color, making her eyes seem bluer and the burnished highlights in her hair appear more golden amidst the strands of deep, warm brown. “I was just thinking I’ve never seen eyes the likes of yours, Mr. Kenyon. Cat’s eyes is what they are. Gray and green at the same time and circled in black. Mum would call them tiger eyes.” Callie bit her lower lip. She was afraid she’d insulted him.
Byrch laughed, the sound reassuring her. “Tiger’s eyes, eh? Do you know what they say about a cat’s eyes? That he can look into your soul. Is that what you think, Callie?”
“That you can look into my soul? Hardly,” she scoffed, still embarrassed by her impudent remark but quick to rally against possible ridicule. “Only the angels can see through to the soul, and you, Mr. Kenyon, are no angel, I suspect.”
But you are an angel, Callie James, Byrch was thinking, and the blue of your eyes is heaven’s own. He almost laughed at himself for his poetic bent of thought. Ireland and it’s blarney was getting to him, he supposed. Quickly he looked away from Callie to where the children were playing. It was disconcerting to find himself thinking of this girl as more a woman than a child. It was just as well he was leaving for America in the morning. Otherwise he knew he would find himself seeking out Callie James again and again, becoming more and more involved in her life. And each time he saw her it would become increasingly difficult to remind himself that she was only a bit more than half his age.
“I really must be getting home, Mr. Kenyon,” Callie told him. “Bridget and Billy did without their naps this afternoon, and I’m soon to get ready for work at the mill.” Calling the children to her, she straightened Bridget’s bonnet and adjusted Hallie’s shoelace. She brushed the dried bits of grass from their clothes and smoothed their hair. “Like Mum always says, we may be poor and shabby, but there’s no reason not to take pride in ourselves. Say goodbye to Mr. Kenyon, he’s leaving for America tomorrow.”
Georgie’s eyes widened with interest. “Really, Mr. Kenyon? Are you gonna sail or go by steamer? What ship is taking you? Do you live in America? Are the streets paved in gold?”
Byrch answered the boy’s questions. “Seems to me, young man, you’ve a great interest in travel.”
“Oh, yes,” Georgie told him. “When I’m a man, I’m going to become a merchant marine and work for the Cunard Line. My Da was a merchant marine!” he said proudly.
“Come now, children, say goodbye to Mr. Kenyon and wish him a safe voyage.”
Byrch leaned over to Billy. “Have you still the coin I gave you?”
Billy extended his hand, the shiny coin resting on his grimy palm. “Just to be a fair man, what would you think if your brother and sisters had a coin just like it?”
Callie was aghast. “No, really, you mustn’t . . .”
“It’s for the children. Surely you wouldn’t deprive me of the pleasure as well as them? Say it’s all right, Callie.”
She looked at the children’s eager faces. She knew how the generous offering would alleviate some of their problems. Standing straight, stiffening her back, she lifted her chin. “Seeing as how it would please you, Mr. Kenyon,” she said softly, lowering her gaze, unable to look at him.
“It does please me, Callie,” he told her, making his voice light and playful. Not for anything would he want to humiliate her, but the need was obviously great. “It pleases me greatly.”
Callie turned away, reluctant to observe this display of charity, for that’s what it was, she knew. She wanted to protest, to refuse, but she’d often heard Peggy quote that “pride goeth before the fall.” Callie wasn’t exactly certain she understood or that it even applied, but she wasn’t about to take chances. The James family could not fall much further without disastrous results.
Throughout Dublin posters from the emigration commissioners and advertisements from ticket brokers were stuck on building facades and eagerly read by the populace. “Flee the Famine” became a much heard cry, and entire families and groups of families were emigrating to America, giving one another moral support and solace. Where most of them found the money for their passage was a mystery, but many of them had family members who had already emigrated and who sent either the ticket or the money.
In some instances the